The Institute of Emotion-Focused Therapy Ireland
presents
“Emotion Focused Skills Training (EFST) for Parents and Caregivers” A four-day workshop for clinicians
Presented by Anne Hilde Vassbø Hagen and Vanja Hjelmseth
Marino Institute of Education, Marino, Dublin
Monday 1st – Thursday 4th September, 2025, 10am-5pm
Cost: €875 (€800 early bird fees paid in full by 31/05/2025). Group Discounts available.
To express interest or register for the this workshop please email: ieftireland@gmail.com
Who is this EFST training for?
This workshop is open to all mental health professionals working with children and their caregivers (e.g., psychology, psychotherapy/counselling, social care, social work, occupational therapy, teaching, nursing & medicine).
The EFST model is applicable both to contexts where children live with their parents and to contexts where children live in other care environments, including foster-care and residential care. As such the workshop format and related interventions covered in this training is applicable both with parents and with professional carers (e.g., foster-carers or social care workers).
What is a training in Emotion Focused Skills Training for Parents and Caregivers?
This training gives a complete overview of the theory, practice, and research of an emotion-centered, humanistic approach to supporting parents (and caregivers) of individuals who struggle with any mental health challenge. Emotion Focused Skills Training (EFST) conveys an unyielding belief in caregiver’s motivation and ability to heal the caregiver-child relationship and help their child (young, adolescent, or adult child) through their struggles. Drawing on the most current understanding of emotions and human development, the model clearly outlines a central role for parents and caregivers in treating and preventing mental health difficulties in their families and care environments.
The training of EFST clinicians is practically oriented and experience-based, which means that participants learn specific skills in how to supervise parents and give parent workshops.
Participants will get all the material you need to deliver parent/caregiver workshops and/or support parents and caregivers in individual counseling sessions.
Facilitators
Anne Hilde Vassbø Hagen is a psychologist, author, mother of three, and filmmaker who produced the popular educational film series Alfred & Shadow. She is head of the Institute of Psychological Counseling, Inc., in Norway, and the director of The Norwegian Institute of Emotion-Focused Therapy. She has written several books in Norwegian about emotions. She is co-author of two English books; Emotion-Focused Skills Training for Parents: A Guide for Clinicians and Angry kids, Angry Parents – Understanding and Working with Anger in Your Family. She is an experienced trainer, speaker, and therapist in emotion focused therapy and emotion focused skills training for parents and is also trained in emotion focused couple’s therapy.
Vanja Hjelmseth is a psychologist, author, and mother of two teens. She is an experienced speaker, and therapist in emotion focused therapy and emotion focused skills training for parents and is also trained in emotion focused couple’s therapy. She is a co-author of Emotion-Focused Skills Training for Parents: A Guide for Clinicians and is an EFT and EFST trainer.
What do I learn?
You will learn how to give a 2-day parent/caregiver workshop in EFST (in person or online)
The first two days of this 4-day training is conducted as a standard parent/caregiver workshop, where we encourage participants to work on their relationship with their own children.You don’t have to be a parent to attend this training. If you don't have children, you work with other important close relationships, such as a partner, sibling, close friend or colleague. The first part of the training is conducted as a standard parenting course in order for participants to gain experience of what it is like to work with their own close relationships, in the manner we require of parents when as therapists and clinicians we deliver workshops and supervise in this method. In the first two days the participants learn about competitive motivation and feeling traps, what emotions are and how they work, as well as the three core skills of validation, boundary setting and relationship repair (apology).
You will learn how to do EFST parent/caregiver counseling with one or both parents/caregivers in the room.
On the third and fourth days of the training, participants learn the specific tasks of EFST chair-work. In these Gestalt and Emotion-Focused Therapy informed interventions, the parent or caregiver is facilitated to engage in dialogues, either with their imagined child, or a part of their own self. These tasks evoke emotion, increase the level of experience and allow words and meanings to be given to difficult feelings in challenging situations. EFST has five different chair tasks; three which facilitate practice of different skills: validation, boundary setting and apology, and two which focus on different self-self-processes (feeling traps in parents/caregivers, and feeling traps in clinicians).
PODCAST EPISODES
EMOTION-FOCUSED PODCAST
#04 Who’s the boss?
JOANNE DOLHANTY DESCRIBES AN EMOTION FOCUSED APPROACH TO PARENTING
https://www.emotionfocused.com/episodes/interview-joanne
EMOTION-FOCUSED PODCAST
#14 Angry kids, angry parents
ANNE HILDE VASSBØ HAGEN TALKS ABOUT THE FUNCTION OF HELPFUL AND UNHELPFUL ANGER IN CHILDREN AND HOW PARENTS CAN HELP
https://www.emotionfocused.com/episodes/interview-annehilde
To express interest or register for the this workshop please email: ieftireland@gmail.com
